


you fold into me like a heart with a beat

by theweightofmywords



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Harry Styles Loves Louis Tomlinson, Insecure Louis, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Roommates, this is just a soft little moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:08:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25689352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theweightofmywords/pseuds/theweightofmywords
Summary: He’s scrolling through his phone as this nervous energy consumes him. He feels like he’s on the edge of something. If he falls, he doesn’t think he’d ever make it back. He catches himself staring at his weather app. It’s sunny where his ex is.It’s sunny here too.--based on the tumblrpost: "I deleted your city off my weather app."
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 24
Kudos: 234





	you fold into me like a heart with a beat

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written in awhile, but for some reason, this post really stuck with me. Enjoy this piece of domestic fluff. 
> 
> Special thanks to Becca for reading this over :) 
> 
> Title from Carly Rae Jepsen's song "Too Much."

Louis didn’t know when the sun had set. One moment, he was excitedly answering a Facetime call from his boyfriend, and the next, he is staring at a black screen, wondering where it all went wrong.

“You’re too much,” he had told Louis, staring just to the side of the camera. Louis had stared at his side profile, wondering who was just off-screen. Wondered if whoever awaited him was too much, or just enough. Louis had felt his smile freeze on his face before fading away, as the other man had abruptly put an end to it all. The memory of his own smile makes Louis’ heart ache. The naive way he had put his boyfriend’s name in all-caps in his calendar, the glee with which he had run off to his bedroom to talk with his lover-- all for nothing.

They had met when the other man was studying abroad. Louis was the local boy that had caught his attention, and for a whole year, he had held it. Long phone calls at odd hours to make up for the time difference, countdowns to brief weekend visits, feverish moments spent trying to make up for lost time-- 

And now it is all over. 

“Lou?” 

Louis’ vision blurs at the sound of another voice. The room is dark by this point, the sun long gone. His phone lies uselessly beside him on the duvet, cold from disuse. He can hear him walk closer, his steps hesitant. 

A sigh. More steps. 

The mattress dips as he sits next to him, the warmth from his body emanating. He must have just come back from a run. 

“Want to talk about it?” he asks, his torso turned slightly towards him. 

Louis’ lip quivers as his face crumpled. He shakes his head, feeling the coil in his chest tighten. 

“Oh, Louis,” he murmurs, drawing Louis close to his chest. “It’s okay…. It’s okay.” 

-

The next day, Louis wakes up to puffy eyes and a cup of tea on his bedside table. He walks on unsteady legs to the living room. 

“I made you some eggs on toast,” he says gently in lieu of a greeting. “If you’re hungry.” 

“Thanks,” Louis says, his stomach grumbling in response to his roommate’s kind offering. He hadn’t eaten since lunch the day before, falling into a fitful sleep. His roommate is cutting up avocados and tomatoes, and usually Louis would talk shit on him for his breakfast choices, but today, the familiar sight feels like a warm hug. 

“He broke up with me,” he mumbles, standing beside him at the counter. The cup of tea is warm in his hands, and the sunlight streams in through their kitchen window. It feels safe enough to say the words that just yesterday had doused him in bitter coldness.

“He said I was too much,” he whispers, his voice wavering with each word. “Said I asked too much of him. Made him feel bad because of how much I needed. I said I love you, and he said I was too much.” 

“That’s bullshit,” his roommate says firmly. The knife is gripped in his white-knuckled hands before he places it down. “What a dick,” he mutters as he turns to Louis. His gaze softens as he touches Louis’ arm. 

“You know that’s not true, right?” he says. “You’re not too much. He’s just not enough.” 

Louis shrugs. He knows that he’s right, but his heart doesn’t really feel it yet. “Yeah, I know,” he says anyway. 

They sit down and eat together, like so many of their mornings past. 

“What’s the weather for today? Want to take Clifford to the dog park?” his roommate asks, their dog’s ears perking up at the words. 

Louis opens his weather app, his eyes freezing when he sees the weather in his ex’s city, miles away. 

“Lou? Is it supposed to rain today?” he asks, some avocado on his chin. 

Louis quickly turns his phone over and smiles tightly. “Not here, no,” he replies. 

\--

“What’s this?” Louis asks, examining the box of Cocoa Puffs. “You never buy this.”

“I saw it and thought of you,” he says as he puts away the rest of the groceries. “Anyway, maybe I like Cocoa Puffs.”

Louis scoffs as he opens the box. “Yeah, okay.”

“I enjoy a bowl of chocolate and sugar for breakfast sometimes, Lou,” he smiles, grabbing two bowls from the cupboard. “I’ve got a secret sweet tooth.”

“You do?” Louis asks, incredulously.

“I like you, yeah?” he replies, pouring cereal in both bowls before pushing one towards Louis. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” Louis says after a beat, blinking. 

As they eat their cereal, Louis finds himself staring at him from the corner of his eye. As he eats spoonfuls of cereal, tongue first, Louis looks away. 

—

“Good morning,” his roommate mumbles, two cups of tea on the counter and eggs sizzling on the pan. The sun is streaming in, and the morning news drones on quietly in the background. Louis stares at his back, wanting to wrap his arms around his waist. He wants to bury his nose in the space between his shoulder blades, wants to brush his lips against the skin where his curls meet his neck. 

Louis doesn’t know when things shifted, but one day, the realisation hits him like a jolt to the chest. The occasional friendly embrace, the sleepy tilt of his head on his roommate’s shoulder, the touch of his waist in passing- it wasn’t enough.

“You’re too much,” Louis remembers his ex-boyfriend’s words, as the pit in his stomach festers.

He mumbles back a greeting and sits at their dining table, his back to him. The sounds of him cooking in the kitchen are so familiar, he can practically see his every movement in his mind. Mornings like these feel like all he’s ever known. 

He’s scrolling through his phone as this nervous energy consumes him. He feels like he’s on the edge of something. If he falls, he doesn’t think he’d ever make it back. He catches himself staring at his weather app. It’s sunny where his ex is. 

It’s sunny here too. 

Louis deletes his city from his weather app and turns his phone off. 

“Here you go!” his roommate announces, setting down two plates of eggs on the table. He must take Louis’ non-response as criticism, because he starts talking.

“Are they too runny? I can throw them back on the pan.”

Louis comes back to the moment, grabbing his fork in one hand while grabbing his roommate’s hand with the other. “No, they’re perfect,” he says. “They’re perfect for me.” 

—

Flowers. There are flowers on the table, along with a box of chocolate croissants and an old envelope. 

“Picked these up on my way back from my run. Enjoy!” he had scrawled in his sloppy all-caps writing. 

Louis looks around, as if someone else might be the intended recipient, before he dips his nose toward the blooming peonies. The pale petals tickle his nose as he breathes in the sweet and floral scent. Cereal was one thing. He had always been generous and thoughtful with Louis. Picking up after him, cooking his favourite meals, doing the wash-- he never asked anything of Louis. 

“You make me feel like shit, the way you need so much,” his ex had said. 

Louis stares at the flowers and the box of croissants. He bites into one and closes his eyes. It is so sweet. 

\--

“Thanks for the flowers,” Louis says later that evening. They’re under a big duvet watching some cooking show, though Louis isn’t paying attention. He’s focused on their skin, barely touching, and the rise and fall of his chest as he rests his head on the other man’s shoulder. Have they always done this? Did they always sit so close and talk so quietly, as if their every word was a secret world just for them? He had always thought his roommate was perfect in a way, that he was somehow in a different league. He deserves someone better than himself, Louis reasoned. Someone that could meet his needs. Someone to take care of him the way he always takes care of Louis. 

“I thought they were nice,” his roommate says slowly, his response measured. “Thought you’d like them.”

“Why?” Louis blurts out. 

He shifts as Louis lifts his head from his shoulder. “What do you mean?”

“Why are you getting them for me? You’ve been getting me things- the dressing gown, the flowers, the sweets- I just-”

“Because I want to, Louis,” he answers, gazing at his hands. There’s a gap between them now, though the air seems to get warmer between them. 

“You’re always taking care of me, and I-- Don’t you get tired of it? Don’t you want someone who takes care of you?” Louis asks, his words coming out faster than he can think. He feels like he’s opened a door that cannot be closed. His hands shake. 

“Yeah, I guess. It’s not really like that with us, though,” he says, looking intently at anything except for Louis. 

“Oh,” Louis says. Right. He doesn’t know why his face feels so hot. He feels like he’s sitting in his room again, staring blankly at the setting sun. 

“Lou, I-”

“It’s okay-”

“No, that’s not what I mean,” he says, and he’s turning back towards Louis. Tentatively, he reaches out for Louis’ hand. Friends don’t hold hands, Louis thinks, but maybe he’s wrong. He wonders how many times he can be wrong before his heart stops trying. 

“You do take care of me,” he murmurs, his thumb brushing against the back of Louis’ hand. 

“I don’t do anything,” Louis shrugs, feeling himself shrink smaller under the duvet. “I ask for too much.”

“No, baby,” he says, moving closer. He holds his face in his hands. “Don’t think like that.” 

He’s gazing at Louis with open eyes, familiar yet different. Or maybe that’s just the way Louis is seeing him now. He thinks of his ex and the way he’d always roll his eyes at Louis. Louis shrugs again. 

“You’re just being nice,” he mumbles, his heart beating its wings, hope dangerously surging closer to the surface. 

“I’m not,” he says quietly. “You know I’m not.”

Louis knows this. He knows this isn’t some sort of rebound or pity party. This seems to have been years in the making, and it only took the loss of someone incredibly wrong for him for Louis to see it clearly. 

He still finds himself delaying the inevitable with his questions, his heart racing. 

“Then, what is this? What’s happening between us?”

“You tell me, baby,” he replies, a smile playing at his lips. He brushes some of Louis’ fringe off his forehead, and Louis wonders why it took so long for him to let himself feel this. To let himself feel safe and happy. To feel enough. 

“Harry,” Louis whispers, his hands shaking as he entwines their fingers. “Do you…”

“Yeah,” Harry murmurs. “Louis, I love you.”


End file.
